Niterói Contemporary Art Museum (MAC Niterói)
Niemeyer's saucer-shaped 1996 museum on a headland above Guanabara Bay, showing Brazilian art.
Perched on the Mirante da Boa Viagem, a rocky headland projecting into Guanabara Bay, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói was designed by Oscar Niemeyer with the engineer Bruno Contarini and opened on 2 September 1996. A single central column supports a saucer-shaped shell some fifty metres in diameter, set above a shallow circular reflecting pool. A long curving red ramp climbs to the entrance from the forecourt, and the building has become the emblem of the city.
The main hall is ringed by a continuous band of windows framing views of the bay, Sugarloaf Mountain and the Rio skyline, so that the panorama works alongside the art on show. Displays draw on the museum's own holdings and on the João Sattamini collection of Brazilian contemporary art, one of the largest of its kind in the country, with work from the 1950s onwards. Temporary exhibitions occupy the central salon and the mezzanine above it.
Highlights
- Saucer-shaped shell carried on a single central column, by Oscar Niemeyer
- Panoramic window band framing Guanabara Bay and Sugarloaf Mountain
- Displays drawn from the João Sattamini collection of Brazilian art
- Circular reflecting pool and long curving entrance ramp
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